Asao Fujiyama[1][2] (afujiyam@ddbj.nig.ac.jp)
[1]National Institute of Genetics, Yata, 1,111, Mishima, Shizuoka 411, Japan
[2]Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Yata, 1,111, Mishima, Shizuoka 411, Japan
Genome research has been (and will be) producing information about genes including structures and genetic loci as well as their products, functions, information as markers, and phenotypic effects. All of these are stored separately or combined through several databases. In addition, information on genetic markers, STSs, contigs, and chromosomal abnormalities are also included in the storage. Out of these, our major interest is information relating to human genes. Structures and functions of the genes and their products, regulation mechanisms, for example, during development, relation with known disorders will provide essential clue to understand function of life. In this study, a database focused on human genes has been designed and the prototype has been constructed. Main purpose of the database is to create generic collection of data on human genes. Such database should be tailored for the majority of the users, the Biologists, to reduce complications required when fishing for necessary data going through different databases. At present, portion of GDB/OMIM, DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank, and PIR/SWISSPROT databases are extracted and stored in a Macintosh computer.